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Health news

24/01/2005 Michail Zurabov admitted his mistakes and promised to correct them

Yesterday the Minister of Health and Social Development Michail Zurabov admitted that there had been made several “obvious errors” during the realization of the law, concerning the change of privileges for money. And he promised to solve these problems in the near future.

According to the Minister these mistakes aren’t political, but economic ones. In those places where people had got reasonable money compensation no problems occurred. In particular, he promised that during these Sunday and Monday morning several agreements between federal and regional administration will be concluded to provide suitable conditions of passages for privileged people. Already within the next few days tickets at the reduced prices for privileged ones will be introduced into practice.

The vice-prime of the Russian Federation Alexander Zhukov believes that the main problem of the present situation is psychological one: the system, which people lived in for several years is being changed.

22/01/2005 Were listening to Mikhail Zurabov and Aleksey Kudrin

The deputies suggested their variant of realization of the law concerning changes in privileges.

Though the deputies criticized the members of the Cabinet of Ministers, on whole they were not so much strict as on the eve of the Duma meeting.

The parliament majority didn’t dare to point out and prosecute the guilty ones in incompleteness of the law realization.
The plenary meeting started with the topic of mistrust to the Ministers. “We can’t stand any more being pulled the wool over our eyes” – Sergey Glaziev exclaimed.

The leader of “Rodina” party asked Mikhail Zurabov and Aleksey Kudrin where they spent their winter holiday, emphasizing that the president Vladimir Putin stayed in Russia, realizing the possible problems with the law introduction. The Ministers didn’t wish to answer the curious question.

“We started working having no listof privileged people…” – Mikhail Zurabov said. Kudrin called the changes absolutely reasonable and necessary, otherwise many kinds of nonmaterial could collapse. But this change must have been done without any worsening of the citizens’ state. “I confess, we didn’t manage to avoid this worsening”, Kudrin mentioned.

Tamara Shkel

Full text is available only in the Russian version.

21/01/2005 Febrifugal ruble

It’s for the first time when the Federal Budget marked out for the ensuring of privileged people with medicines 50,8 billion rubles.

Tatiana Yakovleva, the chairman of the State Duma Committee on Health Defense will answer our questions.

- It is for the first time, - said Tatiana Vladimirovna, - when the Federal Budget marked out for the ensuring of privileged people with medicines 50,8 billion rubles.

- Is it enough?

- It might not be enough, because this sum supposed to support 12 million privileged people with necessary drugs. As we know that there are more than 14 million privileged ones on the moment and this number will probably rise.

- There are a lot of cases, when the medicine that is found in the list causes negative reaction. But the physician doesn’t prescribe another one, because it is not included into the federal list of free medicines…

- It’s crying shame! If the change depends on the state of the patient’s health, it has to be made. The sum of expenses is being limited only by the state of patient’s health.

- And where money is found?

- Money will be found in case of reasonable expenditure of the resources in the provinces. It’s obvious: one needs a medicine, which costs several rubles, and the other one needs a medicine, which costs hundreds or even thousands of rubles.

- Tatiana Vladimirovna, there are a lot of patients, who suffer from bronchial asthma, diabetes, oncological diseases and hemophilia, but who are not included into the federal list of privileged people, they aren’t disabled ones.

- I want to remind you of the enactment ¹ 890, which has been approved by the government of the Russian Federation in 1994. It does work. It says, while dispensary treatment the necessary medicines are proscribed by the physician and given for free to such patients.

Irina Krasnopolskaya

Full text is available only in the Russian version.

20/01/2005 Aleksey Kudrin and Michail Zurabov held a meeting

The cabinet of Ministers solved the problem of privileges.

Yesterday the Minister of Finances Aleksey Kudrin reported that the government corrected rather sufficiently the mechanism of realization of the law concerning privilege payments.

“The part of pensioners told that it it’s not enough to make passages by one means of transport paying reduced price. This should be applied to all means of transport; that’s why we are going to introduce into practice unified passage tickets”, confessed Aleksey Kudrin.
The regions will fix the final price of the tickets themselves.

According to the meeting this idea has been approved of by the regions, though it demands additional expenses. Still there is some misunderstanding. And first of all it is caused by the possible price of these tickets.

The Minister of Health and Social Development Michail Zurabov mentioned that there could be profiteering in some regions. Besides, he literally gave up Leningradsky region, which claimed that it will be enough for it to get a hundred rubles from each privileged one.
So the regions are waiting for the suggestion of the Federal center, and Moscow in its turn suggests fixing the price by the regions themselves.

Another problem has appeared: the common pensioners used to make free passages; they have nothing to do with the privileged ones now.

Speaking about the regions where the administration decided to save the privileges, soon it will have to change them for money. Of course in the future the prices will increase, but the government promises to increase the payments altogether.

Vladimir Kuzmin

19/01/2005 April will begin in March

The president commissioned the government to increase pensions ahead of schedule and introduce into practice unified privilege tickets for privileged people.

On Monday during the meeting with the cabinet of Ministers the president of Russia Vladimir Putin told that the change of privileges for money is valid but it hasn’t been introduced into practice in full measure. That’s why the management of the country declared about speeded up increase of pensions beginning not with the 1st of April but with the 1st of March, besides the addition to the sum will rise.

- I believe it would be right to increase pensions on at least 200 rubles beginning with the 1st of March, - the president prompted to the government.

- It’s possible to assume that in the connection with the planning indexing the addition to the pensions will reach 240 rubles, - reacted the Minister of Health and Social Development Mikhail Zurabov.
Speaking about the government, which is being criticized, it must have been ready for the telling criticism of left-wing and right-wing parties, “which on in the beginning of nineties were making the oligarchial system of capitalism and on the other hand made popular but absolutely undoable decisions” mentioned the president. As the result, Putin states, “more than 50 % of citizens were ascribed as privileged ones and the rest of the people had to repay all the services”. After such an explanation the reasons for passing the law should be understandable to everybody. “The problem is the realization of it. Both the government and the regional administration didn’t accomplish the aim – not to worsen the situation of those, who really need help”, mentioned the president.

Putin believes it is right to let the citizens decide whether to get the privilege tickets or to get pure money.

“The problem of passage of citizens who have been assigned to the federal list should be solved by the government and thus compensate the regions the corresponding loses”, such advice gave Vladimir Putin to the cabinet of Ministers, emphasizing that all pensioners also use the free passage, even having no privileges.

More than that the cabinet of Ministers lent an ear to the numerous requests of the veterans and is ready to provide them for free traveling to any region in the country once a year. “They don’t want to go to signatories even for free, they just want to visit their relatives”, explained the gist of their claims Mikhail Zurabov.

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